Crank - Miami also has the distinction of another school with the same exact name in Div 1 athletics. So they are almost required to use the U of Miami moniker as seeing Miami itself is almost universally associated with Miami University in Ohio. I'm sure there are other examples as well.

When you look at most state schools, I think the majority of the flagship university uses the state name and system schools use the U.... Texas-UTEP-UTSA / Cal-UCLA / Indiana-IUPUI those ones immediately came to mind. But I suppose you also have UNC which is much more common to see than North Carolina (I think).

UNC is kind of a weird one. They use UNC, North Carolina, and Carolina all pretty interchangeably. "Carolina" is probably used the most these days, while "North Carolina" is usually reserved for more formal contexts (not sure if that's a good description, but yeah), and "UNC" if there are physical space requirements, in reference to all university functions, or being used as a local colloquialism. At least that's my understanding of it, and I like to think I have a pretty reasonable grasp of how they do things since I have family in North Carolina and my Dad's a Kenan–Flagler alum.

Other than UMass and UCONN there is only one other state flagship whose primary branding is a "U': LSU. Interestingly, I believe UL-Lafayette has begun referring to themselves as "Louisiana" making them one of only two non-flagships to use their state name (them and Ohio, and I guess three if you count Penn).

Just saw this. I've lived in the Triangle for 20 years. UNC is UNC. It's also Carolina. It's also North Carolina. But 'UNC" is the predominate name used when University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is talked about. "Carolina" is used predominately by alumni. "North Carolina" is used by wannabes. "UNC" is, by a large majority, the name must commonly used.

Crank - Miami also has the distinction of another school with the same exact name in Div 1 athletics. So they are almost required to use the U of Miami moniker as seeing Miami itself is almost universally associated with Miami University in Ohio. I'm sure there are other examples as well.

When you look at most state schools, I think the majority of the flagship university uses the state name and system schools use the U.... Texas-UTEP-UTSA / Cal-UCLA / Indiana-IUPUI those ones immediately came to mind. But I suppose you also have UNC which is much more common to see than North Carolina (I think).

UNC is kind of a weird one. They use UNC, North Carolina, and Carolina all pretty interchangeably. "Carolina" is probably used the most these days, while "North Carolina" is usually reserved for more formal contexts (not sure if that's a good description, but yeah), and "UNC" if there are physical space requirements, in reference to all university functions, or being used as a local colloquialism. At least that's my understanding of it, and I like to think I have a pretty reasonable grasp of how they do things since I have family in North Carolina and my Dad's a Kenan–Flagler alum.

Other than UMass and UCONN there is only one other state flagship whose primary branding is a "U': LSU. Interestingly, I believe UL-Lafayette has begun referring to themselves as "Louisiana" making them one of only two non-flagships to use their state name (them and Ohio, and I guess three if you count Penn).

Just saw this. I've lived in the Triangle for 20 years. UNC is UNC. It's also Carolina. It's also North Carolina. But 'UNC" is the predominate name used when University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is talked about. "Carolina" is used predominately by alumni. "North Carolina" is used by wannabes. "UNC" is, by a large majority, the name must commonly used.

FWIW, anyone across the country that knows of UMass, due to sports, knows that when people say UMass they mean the one in Amherst. I'm not sure they are even remotely aware that Lowell, Dartmouth or Boston campuses exist. Whether they know that Amherst is 1.5 hours outside of Boston is a whole other question. Athens, Georgia is an hour outside of Atlanta though, so I'm not sure why thats always made out to be such a big deal.

I saw an opinion piece in the collegian about changing the university seal. I don't have a problem with the seal (I think it's quite appropriate that it reflects our state seal), however I do find it weird that in some places it's maroon, blue, and gold... very strange. The author, Kevin Hollerbach, suggests the seal should feature "the Massachusetts Minuteman". Coincidentally, I drafted up this concept a few months ago. (please don't mind the watermarks )

PS. To the #UMassTwitter crowd y'all should follow @UMASSDaily if you haven't already. It's a twitter bot that tweets articles relating to UMass and is how I find most of the UMass material I read, including this article.

When I was asked to lead the License Plate project late 2003, much consideration was given to all possible plate graphics...
"We" easily eliminated a similar logo re: the one on the then/now NG plate.

Well they both feature Daniel Chester French's statue, "The Minute Man of Concord". I just used that drawing because y'all really don't want to see my drawing skills, trust me.

However, I'm not seeing the similarity between it and the national guard plate. I doubt people would get confused between a university and a reserve military force... I don't think people see folks with Clemson plates and go "oh they must be a zookeeper", but if it's that big of a deal the athletic marks could be used (as they are now).

I don't know if you still keep in touch with the folks who worked on the license plates, but is there any word on whether they'll be updated? UMass hasn't used the Sam logo as its primary mark since 2013 and it looks like they retired him entirely last year. http://www.umasshoops.com/newboard/view ... =6&t=14901

We had a fantastic group of individuals, from the get-go, willing to get it going, at virtually no cost.
Including the late great Dr. Ralph, who predicted we would get the initial 1,500 in less than a month, without stepping off Campus.
"We" had an amazing opportunity back then, with virtually no competition for our plate.

Many people, lacking the background to move it forward, took control and repeatedly failed.
Promises were quickly broken.

Who knows how much they spent with the repeated failures...
No one is willing to release those figures...
just the total revenues, which are a mere fraction of their costs.

Despite being treated poorly (understatement), I continued to offer to take it over under the same terms I was given late 2003, under the administrations of all successor Chancellors and AA E.D.s
All of them declined...
save for Chancellor's Holub's #1, who was willing to turn it back over to me as soon as we finished a half-hour first-time chat at a football game. Unfortunately, he saw the problem with the politics of being a UM admin and went back to Colorado shortly after our chat.

The last # I was provided (not solicited by me) was 2,283, as of last September, up 41 for the then 2017 YTD.https://www.umassalumni.com/s/1640/rd17 ... &pgid=4490
I do not know how they figure the five years, unless they rewrite history by eliminating the several failures and costs associated with each one of them.

It is what it is...

I am interested only in working on charitable endeavors I am qualified for and can enjoy.

end of my story...
on to better endeavors, including one many of our posters contributed to.

^
Slightly off topic. If we could just get into the top half of US schools' admissions yields (% of accepted students who decide to enroll; median is 33% and UMass is at 20%) we could drop our acceptance rate to 35%. If we could increase our yield to Louisville standard of 40% we could drop our acceptance rate to 29%. That's among the commonly referred to public ivies.

Also interesting check out the original 8 "public ivies" as coined by Richard Moll in 1985:

College of William & Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia)
Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) <== If there was going to be a Miami on this list, I'm surprised it's not the one in Florida
University of California (9 campuses as of 1985) <== I know UC system is world class, but can 9 campuses really count as ONE ivy?
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of Texas at Austin
University of Vermont (Burlington) <=== Whaaaaaaaat???? ... OK pal
University of Virginia (Charlottesville)

I suppose that's the power of high level athletics. EXPOSURE. I think that we had a discussion in this thread earlier about Miami and how they were able to make a "U" their iconic primary mark despite it being very ambiguous (unless you count the association of flamboyant colors with the city of Miami). It doesn't hurt that this iconic mark has been in use since 1972, but I believe the success of their branding is not due not to branding itself, but rather the exposure they've received due to being in the Top 25, major bowls, championships, not to mention 81 continuous seasons in the highest level of football (basketball actually has not been as stable, only continuous since 1985... a year after "The U" hand gesture started btw). Additionally their membership in a major conference for the past 26 season (ACC and Big East before that) has lead to greater resources to reinvest in their programs (including merchandise and marketing) as well as exposure by association (even if they were terrible, they'd still regularly be playing Top 25 teams).

^ He picked up an offer from Towson a couple of days ago, I assume that's what he's referring to. I've seen no mention of UMass offering him, but it's certainly possible.

There was an article about an offer he received and it mentioned his previous offers and it said UMass...now they could’ve meant Lowell but they did not say Lowell, but that would be a good level for him.

......
I suppose that's the power of high level athletics. EXPOSURE. I think that we had a discussion in this thread earlier about Miami and how they were able to make a "U" their iconic primary mark despite it being very ambiguous (unless you count the association of flamboyant colors with the city of Miami). It doesn't hurt that this iconic mark has been in use since 1972, but I believe the success of their branding is not due not to branding itself, but rather the exposure they've received due to being in the Top 25, major bowls, championships, .....

Same way that most anyone can identify Alabama's helmet, but probably could not identify any of the more than a dozen other major schools using the similar design for at least short periods in the past decade. http://nationalchamps.net/Helmet_Project/

I gave a crack at this not too long ago, and what I found was that minuteman patterns seem to always rely on symbols that are inherently tied to violence (musket, hatchet, etc). The hat is really the only other distinguishing feature I could find. But I do agree that a pattern would be absolutely awesome, especially if they incorporated it onto uniforms. I.e UNC's argyle pattern, Maryland's flag pattern, etc etc.